


Changes

by Markipoo



Category: GOT7, JJ Project
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Angst, Birth, Bottom Im Jaebum | JB, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Men Crying, Mpreg, One Shot, Top Park Jinyoung | Jr., home birth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-05-23 08:09:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14930468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Markipoo/pseuds/Markipoo
Summary: Jaebum was not ready for this, neither was Jinyoung. For as long as they could remember danger had always loomed over them, but now they were adding a baby into the mix.orAfter giving birth to his and Jinyoung's daughter, he's forced to deal with the consequences and what it means for any future family.





	1. Chapter 1

They name her Mina.

The name flutters from Jaebum’s mouth the second the doctor places her in his arms, a wailing, squirming pink-tinged newborn that he cradles close to his bare chest, head supported in the crook of his elbow. He’d gotten himself stuck on a passel of other names over the past five months, favoring Chunhei in particular, but she is so quintessentially a Mina with her curiosity and the strength as she grasps onto his index finger.

She rustles in his arms and it’s like everything vacuums into just her, all else rendered obsolete, forgotten in the moment of connection. It’s more powerful than he imagined, this bond he can feel instantly imprinting between child and parent, betwixt two souls only minutes ago cached in one body but now blinking at one another all their own. Jaebum’s only marginally aware of Jinyoung pressing cool fingers to his sweat-matted forehead and of the aching pain in his body evaporating, physical exertions numbing. Even his hands cease their exhausted tremors.

All he feels are the tears pricking the corners of his eyes and the distension that balloons his heart. In the back of his mind ‘elation’ and ‘unconditional love’ are supplied charitably to him, a purity to the emotions that shocks him somewhat.

Much like his hope, Jinyoung's twinkling brown eyes peer up at him and Jaebum knows that nothing untoward, perverse, ill can touch his love for his daughter. It is not a whim he’ll decidedly cast off.

“Mina,” he whispers by rote, genuinely marveling when a flicker of recognition passes over her eyes and the edges of her plump lips tug in a tiny smile, her cries fading.

Jaebum looks up at Jinyoung then, breathless at such a small, inconsequential signal. His husband, hanging precariously at Jaebum’s right shoulder, shifts, studying Mina with his inherent intensity as if unclear on the procedure now, what to do with this new development. It’s perhaps the first time he’s seen a child up close, nevertheless a child of half his own dna. It must be surreal.

“I think she recognizes me,” Jaebum divulges aloud, unable to quell the awe.

“Of course she does,” his mid-wife, Youngae, intones from his other side, the gravel in her voice contradicting the tears standing on the ends of her eyelashes. She squeezes Jaebum’s shoulder, offering a proud smile where brilliance is reflected back. “You did amazing.”

“Yes,” Jinyoung assents, eyes ceasing to stray from Mina, “you did.”

Jaebum slips his finger from Mina’s grasp to pull the hand-stitched blanket over her arms, securing it as tightly as her incorrigible wiggles will permit, the sudden fear of her catching a cold or another sickness clenching his nerves. As he does this he spies Jinyoung’s hand move in his eye’s periphery; tentatively, Jinyoung brushes a thumb over Mina’s forehead, grazing the tuft of black hair that curls along the crown of her head, and then strokes the back of his hand across her cheek.

She reaches blindly for him, arms flailing in the open air, before he willingly forfeits his hand, unable to deny her. Like she had done with her other father before, she grasps his index finger and holds it with her two hands, delicate fingers exuding an unanticipated power. Jaebum hears Jinyoung take a sharp breath, unprepared for the contact, and one glimpse of his partner, at the astonishment christened on his face, the wideness of his eyes, belies that he is no longer alone in his union with Mina, that the circle’s been opened for completion.

A tear leaks down Jaebum’s cheek, but he doesn’t move to swipe it away, wouldn’t dare touch such a thing. “She’s perfect,” he observes. She’s small and light in his hands, can’t weigh more than six pounds, and there are still patches of cherry red blood covering her, but she has ten toes and ten fingers and, yes, she is perfect.

“She is,” Jinyoung says, barely audible.

Jaebum can feel the mattress dip a bit—he hears Youngae clap Jinyoung’s shoulder, the answering grunt and can only guess that Youngae has given her belated congratulations—but his entire focus is on Mina. It still doesn’t feel real, even as he holds her. He’s rocketed up to the moon, reveling in this rite of passage he’s been privileged to serve under, birthing a new life. Because here she is, finally, this little being that he and Jinyoung created, this impossibility that happened, this rarity that occurred. He can’t believe it, can’t believe she’s here, can’t believe how much he loves her, can’t believe she’s his, can’t believe anything that is his life in this room.

God, look what he accomplished through the pain and aggravation and perpetual disquiet. Look at her.

“Jin, look what we created,” he murmurs, more to himself than his partner.

Except maybe Jinyoung does hear, maybe they both do because the vibe in the room shifts anxiously in one fell swoop, the change unmistakable. The elation bottoms out. Jinyoung retracts his finger from Mina’s grip, straightening, and even Youngae seemly itches in place. Jaebum quizzically looks up at Jinyoung and…his entire demeanor has thwarted, dismantled, backpedaled. Any wonderment or astonishment that previously graced the angel’s visage has vanished, replaced with a decathect crease in his brow and his perfunctory thin-lined lips.

It slaps Jaebum hard, that the joyous scene could be lost so quickly, that his weightless high could be sobered without a courtesy caveat. Drawing his knees forth, he huddles Mina closer to his chest, hunching his shoulders protectively, as if to shield her. Youngae says his name patiently, but he ignores the older woman, eyes centered solely on Jinyoung.

He shakes his head, the litany of “No” escalating in force as he says it again and again.

“Jaebum, we discussed this,” Jinyoung reminds him. “We can't keep her.”

And just like that, as with everything else in his life, the beatitude is brief, momentary, two ships passing in the night, there and gone. His heart cracks down the middle like a fault splitting him apart, destruction on either side. But then a fury fires low in his belly; angry that Jinyoung is forcing this upon him, angry that Youngae is playing accomplice, angry that he could be handed his dream one second then stripped of it the next. Damn the Powers That Be and Fate and whoever motherfucking else.

“You make her sound like a puppy,” Jaebum growls, jaw setting. “She’s our daughter.”

“I am well aware. But we discussed this. You agreed.”

Jaebum remembers the discussion well, accurately, in more detail than he cares for. Jinyoung had appeared in their home one Wednesday morning shortly after Jaebum had returned from a trip into town and had espied him fondling a onesie with the eagerness and worshipfulness of any soon-to-be parent. It had resulted more in his conceding than unanimous concurrence, always sitting coldly with Jaebum, stirring up uncomfortable feelings whenever it was mentioned, indirectly or discreetly. It hadn’t been something he’d dwelled on often, choosing in fact to often forget than have it loom over his head for the remaining two months.

In the dawn of light the logic behind the decision seems holy illogical. Why would he ever surrender her into the unknown unprotected?

“Jaebum.”

Jinyoung’s hand falls onto Jaebum’s head, cupping the crown, fingertips skating along the sensitive hairs. At the touch the anger dissolves and the tears return, a lump lodging in his throat as his nose stings. The wall he trusted to keep him stoic and apathetic to nearly all aspects of his life, the sturdy dam that never crumbled under the persistence of vulnerability, crumbles then and there. This is too big, he knows, for indifference to play a role.

He bites down hard on his bottom lip to prevent the tears from running freely down his cheeks, stroking Mina’s head as she stirs, unequivocally sensing the tension transferring between her parents. “Please,” he entreats raggedly, staring up at Jinyoung. “She needs to be protected.”

“The greatest way we can protect her is that no one knows, that she grows up as an ordinary child,” Jinyoung explains carefully. “Without us.”

Yougae takes a conscious few steps back, allowing them their room, eyes downcast. Jaebum hopes the woman that has been like a mother to him understands what he’s doing, what he’s befouling his hands in. He hopes Youngae understands just how this is going to alter him; he knows for certain he won’t be the same after this, if anyone ever is. Why do you want to take away my baby, he wants to asks, keens with the opportunity to lash, to make the older man feel as worse as he does. Why do you want to do this to me?

He shakes his head again, a kneejerk reaction. “Let’s keep her, please. No one has to know. Jin, no one has to know. I can keep her under the radar.”

“Jaebum—”

“I can take care of her—we can take care of her,” he asserts, knowing that he’s straining, that he’s grasping at straws, that he’s fighting a fruitless argument. Jinyoung’s face falls even more. “We can raise her, we can keep her safe. We can.”

Jinyoung leans into him, his hand drifting down the line of his neck. “I am sorry, Jaebum, but I don't think that this is a suitable future for her. That is no life for her.” He pinches the short hairs there, a feeble attempt at reassurance. “When the time comes we can return into her life. When we are needed. Until then she will have a better life without us in it.”

“How can you say that?” Jaebum demands.

“Because I love her.” He doesn’t know why but the sincerity in which Jinyoung murmurs the words, true and indisputable and impassioned and without hesitance, renders him stunned. Jinyoung stares at him, allowing the words to marinate, letting them hang there heavily, not to be doubted. “It is my love for her that, as her father, I want her to live as ordinarily and therefore as safely as she possibly can. We can't protect her, Jaebum.”

Jaebum is silent for a minute, closing his eyes as another tear seeps out. He inhales and breathes, “No one has to know.”

The more he says those five words—no one has to know, no one has to know—the less he believes them. It’s optimism at its worst, entirely a delusion to believe she’d go undiscovered by any enemy still walking around. He knows that. It had been part of the very reason he’d nodded his head and ended their discussion two months ago, knew that Jinyoung was right then and knows he’s right now.

 

He’d long ago grown accustomed to letting go of things (people) that were dispensable, had accepted the life he’d been saddled with at 16 years old, and he’d always been surprisingly okay with it. It’s true too many attachments could get him killed, could get other people killed. It’s why he didn’t establish attachments, why he plagued dalliances, why he used to live off one-night stands and still in motel rooms.

Yet here is the one person who really does need to live without him and he wants to hold onto her forever.

Jinyoung deposits a tender kiss in his hair, a pop of affection so rarely seen by outside eyes that Jaebum’s heart stutters. With the touch he exhales shakily, readjusting Mina in his arms; the little girl watches her fathers with inquisitive eyes, taking in everything.

Adoration manifesting once more in his eyes, Jinyoung gazes down at her, head canted. It’s irrefutable then that he’s as impartial to giving up their child as first glance deemed. Even if he’d never say it aloud in open confidence, he does not favor this plan anymore than his partner, however choosing to honor her best interests than their selfish desires.

“It’s best for her,” he propounds, just for Jaebum to hear.

Jaebum nods. It is, but it doesn’t hurt any less; if anything it only hurts more. We’re not what’s best for her, he fills in tacitly.

Because that’s when it really sinks in. Jaebum will never be her dad. Jinyoung will never be her dad. Fathers but never dads. There are no ballet lessons or tea parties in their future. They will never praise her for a good grade on a test or cheer for her at a school graduation. There will never be eligible, enterprising boys on their doorsteps to pick her up for a date. They will never give an opinion on a dress or drop her off at a dance.

Their roles will be taken over and they will be reduced to chromosomes, maybe to a wish she has someday down the line when curiosity can no longer be hindered. She’ll call another man ‘dad.’ Probably a man with a normal job in a normal house with a normal family. A man who gives her a sibling and provides her with everything and spoils her rotten. Jaebum wishes that idea wasn’t so agonizing, torturous.

“Jaebum.” Youngae’s brusque voice cuts through the silence, snapping Jaebum back to the present, casting his eyes upward to the woman. She’s taken the necessary steps back to the bed, arms now extended expectantly, needling, revoltingly. “It’s time. Give her to me.”

Jaebum returns his attention to Mina, ignoring Youngae until she wiggles her fingers, more demanding. “Give me another minute,” he pleas in response.

Jinyoung and Youngae pass a look over Jaebum’s head; Youngae drops her arms to his side, supplementing with utmost candor, “Look, I know this is tough, but—”

“Shut up,” Jaebum snaps disputatiously, scissoring a look to the older woman that shuts her up long enough to roll his eyes and release an exaggerated sigh. Youngae's always been a patronizing, no-bullshit sort of woman, all bark and bite, and that was something Jaebum loved about her, but not right now, not when he was about to say goodbye to his daughter.

He tensely asks again for another minute, but Mina is already scorned by the rough exchange. She fusses in Jaebum’s arms, arching out of his hands and kicking her legs wildly, eyes squeezed shut and face reddening to a beat tomato. He strokes her head comfortingly, doing anything he can think of to calm her; he’d feel awkward about it in any other situation, but he can’t bring himself to care, not when his entire focus has cylindered to this one task.

“Shh, shh, Mina, it’s okay. It’s okay. I didn’t mean to shout. I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he coos.

Then, on instinct when she proceeds her commotion to a more rancorous level, the memory of indefatigable nights flood to the surface of his mind, when her restlessness had come in the form of kicks while he’d tried to sleep, when he’d laid a gentle hand on his stomach and softly told delirious stories in the dark, hushing her until she tapered off into slumber.

So he opens his mouth and sings.

It takes far longer than usual, finishing a full circuit of the lullaby, and only when he’s satisfied with the rhythm of her breathing, with the way her eyes shift under the diaphanous lids, does he wipe the remaining blood away and cagily transfer her into Youngae’s arms, pressing kisses to her temple and whispering his apologies thrice over. Youngae’s gone in a breeze, scuttling from the room without a word until he’s heard rummaging as inaudibly as possible in the kitchen, leaving the parents in the abrupt silence. Jaebum stares at his vacant hands, choosing to ignore the way Jinyoung’s eyes track Youngae’s every move.

It’s several minutes before Jaebum moves experimentally, creaking his joints and bending his limbs for the first time in eight and a half hours. There are still evanescent flashes of discomfort, little aches and sores, nothing a day’s rest won’t knick in the butt, but mostly he feels…Mostly he’s devoid of evidence, vacant of clues that he’d been pregnant, that he’d even had a child. There isn’t a scar from the cesarean incision, nary stains of bodily fluids. It’s as if it were all a dream—a radical, nonsensical dream of buried desires that only the subconscious could generate into something too tangible to not be a waking dream.

It’s…shuddering. And he feels more hollowed because of it.

He reaches his arm out to Jinyoung, beckoning with the command, “Help me up, Jin. I want a shower.”

Jinyoung promptly grasps his bicep and hauls him up some, lending support as he swings his legs over the side of the bed, wincing as he goes. A flicker over his shoulder confirms, yeah, they’ll definitely be washing these sheets before they leave. Maybe burning them. They’ll see how it goes.

The groan he emits as he totters to his feet puts Jinyoung on alert, his fingers digging into Jaebum’s skin and saying Jaebum’s name in that cautionary advisory manner that he long ago perfected.

“I’m fine, Jin.” It’s a half-ass reassurance collaborated by a bland smile, one even Jaebum wouldn’t believe if he were on the receiving end, but Jinyoung knows him intimately enough that he doesn’t question the older man, merely wraps one arm around his waist and assists him to the bathroom.

Jaebum is, if anything, grateful for Jinyoung’s nonresistance.

\- - -

By request (and according to plan), Youngae leaves with Mina while Jaebum’s in the shower. Water tripping along his back, hands braced on the tile wall, Jaebum is serenely insensible to the unfettered devastation he would’ve felt had he had to watch their departure, a small seed of peace he prays to as he closes his eyes, letting the water drop off his eyelashes and trickle down the curve of his nose.

While he doesn’t doubt that Jinyoung (sensed, ever vigilant, sitting where Jaebum left him, cross-legged on the floor just inside the ajar door, immobile, loyally at his husband’s side) can in fact hear everything, Jaebum cannot. The shower drowns out the click of the front door as Youngae closes it behind them, the creaks of the Mustang, the roar of her engine and then the soft purr as she’s idled around the house then rolled onto the street. It’s all part of the plan, down to its last microbe detail; if he can’t see, hear, presently be then he won’t be affected. He’ll be spared the infliction of loss.

Or so he previously believed.

For all his planning he’s unprepared for the surge of emotion that smothers and suffocates him, for the accompanying coldness that fills his veins and raises goose bumps all over his body when he is, once and for all, severed completely from Mina. She’s gone. His heart constricts painfully and he almost cries out at its unexpected bind, the sound lost as his lungs give out next. He can’t breathe, gasping for air, desperate for it, fingertips now digging into the wall, shakes coming upon violently.

He’s light-headed on quaking legs, at the precipice of collapsing, and in the midst of what he knows is a full-blown panic attack. Jaebum has no idea what to do. She’s gone.

He hears the faint clacking of shoe soles on the floor then the grating squeak of the glass partition being drawn back, systematically knowing Jinyoung is coming to his rescue. But he can’t manage words in his closed throat to protest the interference before the angel steps into the stall with him and manhandles him into his arms, hands heavy on Jaebum’s neck, roughly pressing their foreheads together and demanding that Jaebum look at him.

But Jaebum can’t focus on anything but the alarming need for air, can’t stop thinking, oh Christ, he’s going to die right here and now, naked and in the shower only an hour after giving birth to a daughter he’ll never see grow up.

He barely hears Jinyoung say his name again, wheezing, “Jinyoung, I can’t—I can’t—breathe.” She’s gone.

Then there’s a hand on his cheek and he clearly hears the same order, “Look at me.”

When he does, frantically grabbling for purchase, Jinyoung’s face opens and he wraps an arm around Jaebum’s waist to steady him, breathing demonstratively for Jaebum to mimic. He takes Jaebum’s vulnerability within himself, accepting this part of him as readily as any other, the bad with the good. For the hysteria, it all lasts less than two minutes; his breathing regulates, chest moving shallowly, carefully, and the cold recedes as swiftly as it invaded, replaced with renewing warmth that is purely Jinyoung.

They stand there for several minutes, wrapped around one another, Jinyoung watching Jaebum with guarded vigor while Jaebum soothes his body to normality. Light after-trembles skirt under his fingertips and it’s then that he realizes Jinyoung is still fully dressed, suit sodden, clinging to his svelte frame, dress shirt practically transparent, having not taken a moment to divest in his rush to get to Jaebum. A pang of guilt flows through him, he frowning, berating himself for being so selfish, for not paying closer attention and not taking care of Jinyoung after he’d taken care of him.

He lays quick work on the suit, peeling the jacket from Jinyoung’s shoulders and tugging the tie loose enough to lift it over Jinyoung’s head. Jinyoung proceeds to watch Jaebum painstakingly, an almost hyper-awareness to his concentration while Jaebum licks his lips and picks at the tricky shirt buttons.

It isn’t long, Jaebum on the last button, it slipping repeatedly through his hands, before Jinyoung speaks again, interjecting the undressing with, “Are you all right?”

He’s not, so far from it. He’s never felt so bereft (the perfect fucking word, he thinks) in his whole life. But he doesn’t know how to convey it into words, what’s never been a strong suit, raised in his masculinity to not discuss these things. He has to remind himself countless times that it’s Jinyoung: his husband that knows him completely. As it is, Jinyoung wouldn’t be it for him if he couldn’t be exposed in every context of the word.

“I feel weird,” he confesses, hushed, another of their little secrets. “And empty. I hate it.”

Jinyoung nods, drawing his arms back as the last button gives way and Jaebum sheds the shirt, dispensing it on the tub’s floor, reaching for his belt next. Closing his eyes as Jinyoung’s fingers skim along his hipbone, Jaebum focuses on his task, anything to keep his mind off what just transpired, why it transpired at all. The wound is too fresh to prod at. And yet it has to be addressed, can’t be swept under the nearby carpet. One of them will have to say it eventually because then it’ll be real.

If they say it they can move on. And that’s the only way he’ll get to be okay. And he has to be okay. For everyone.

“She’s gone.”

It’s time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He doesn't say everything that comes to mind.  
> She had your hair. She had my eyes, but that could've just been because all babies have got those eyes. She was so small, no longer than the distance from my hand to my elbow. She was perfect, from every tiny fingernail to the careful curve of her lip, and she had a little brown fingerprint of a birthmark on her left shoulder.

Jinyoung stares out the window.

The house is too quiet, almost unnervingly quiet. He stares over at Jaebum's face, lying pale motionless. He stares everywhere, _anywhere_ , except where the sheets lay flat over Jaebum's deflated stomach. Jinyoung pushes the heels of his hands into his closed eyes and tries to breathe. The silence is broken by a soft moan of pain. It isn't loud but it's enough to give him the warning to steel himself.

Jaebum's mouth spreads into a grimace of pain. He blinks once, twice, then opens his eyes. They don't focus on anything in particular, just gaze glassily at the ceiling. A sickening emotion spreads cold and painful through Jinyoung's insides as he watches Jaebum lift his hand, rest it on the loose, empty skin over his stomach, and let his eyes drift shut again. He lies very still, breathing shallowly, eyes shut, not letting so much as a twitch betray the pain he must be in. But then he turns his head towards Jinyoung and fixes him with him with a blank, empty look. He opens his mouth like he wants to say something and Jaebum waits but nothing comes. Jaebum turns his head away, shuts his eyes again, and forces himself to fall back asleep.

It goes on like this for days.

⚉⚉⚉⚉⚉

Jaebum doesn't move.

When Jinyoung makes him, he eats. He showers for a very long time, so long that Jinyoung gets concerned and considers breaking the door down before Jaebum finally emerges. The first night, Jinyoung finishes dinner, gets ready for bed, and goes to fetch Jaebum.

"I'm going to sleep," he says, laying a hand on Jaebum's shoulder. He doesn't get a reply, not even a shrug. Jinyoung withdraws and goes off to bed. He holds out hope for some time that Jaebum is just lagging, that he'd come eventually. He falls asleep waiting.

One night, after Jaebum has gone to bed, Jinyoung is watching something, he's not sure what anymore, when he hears a quiet knock on the door. He stiffins, knowing it's probably Youngae. She left them alone for a few days but it was time to talk, Jinyoung supposed. He stands up and opens the door.

"How's he holding up?" 

"He's... not talking a whole lot," he days." He eats whatever I give him, and he showers. But besides that?" He gestures to the couch. "Right there"

He doesn't say that Jaebum has been sleeping there as well. He's sure he doesn't need to.

⚉⚉⚉⚉

That night Jaebum comes into their bedroom.

The creaking of the floor wakes Jinyoung up immediately. It's hardly the first time Jaebum has crept into their room hours after Jinyoung has gone to bed. After the first few times, Jinyoung had stopped reacting. The sheets lift, and cold air rushes in. Jinyoung waits for Jaebum's weight to sink into the mattress next to him and the cover to settle over them again. Instead a rough hand pushes him from his side onto his back. Jinyoung blinks his eyes open, startled. Jaebum climbs onto the bed, straddles Jinyoung's waist, leans down, and claims his mouth with a hard kiss.

Jinyoung can't do much more than grunt in surprise. He takes hold of Jaebum's hips and finds he's naked from the waist down. Jaebum pulls back to strip off his shirt.

"Jaebum, what-"

"Stop talking." Jaebum says shortly. He flings his shirt into the corner of the room and bend back down to suck a hot mark onto Jinyoung's throat. Jinyoung bares his neck out of habit more than desire. 

Jaebum rolls halfway off and pulls Jinyoung's pants partway down, leaving Jinyoung naked from neck to knees. Jinyoung shuts his eyes and tries not to think of the ugly scar above Jaebum's pelvis as Jinyoung crouches over him on all fours and plants wet kisses down his body. But the more Jinyoung tries not to think of it, the clearer it is in his mind. He combs his fingers through Jaebum's hair and gently tugs, just enough to arrest his attention. “Jaebum."

Jaebum lifts his head. “Stop talking,” he says again, with a sharper, ominous edge to his voice. “And pull my hair,” he adds, in the rough undertone that Jinyoung has never once heard outside of the bedroom.

Jinyoung stops talking. He should stop this altogether, but God, he’d missed this so much. Not sex—simple closeness. He hadn’t realized how desperately he needed to hold and be held, to touch and be touched. The sudden onslaught of intimacy is disorienting. In his muddled state, all Jinyoung can do is hold on.

Jaebum opens his mouth and scoops Jinyoung's cock into the circle of his lips. Jinyoung's eyelids flutter. Jaebum has done this before, has gently suckled Jinyoung's soft cock into hardness with heartrending patience. He's trying the same now. It's all too apparent from the way he's working his tongue under Jinyoung's foreskin and massaging the backs of Jinyoung's thighs. Usually, it gets Jinyoung hard as iron inside of a minute. Tonight, though...

The reality of what they're doing hits him like a wave of nausea. He tugs at Jaebum's hair, trying to pull him up and off so they can talk. But Jaebum just sighs in—relief? Jinyoung remembers him asking Jinyoung to pull his hair. And, God, if all it takes to get him out of this slump is a little hair-pulling, then Jinyoung's fucking overjoyed to provide.

He combs his fingers through those dark curls and really  _yanks_. Jaebum moans around the soft weight of Jinyoung's cock in his mouth and redoubles his efforts. For a minute, Jinyoung manages to convince himself it's okay. This is alright. It's just a little hair-pulling, a little cocksucking. But it's plain from the sinewy twist of Jaebum's body that he's interested in more. And Jinyoung...can't do that for him. He just can't stomach it.

Jaebum lifts his head and lets Jinyoung's prick slip free. Even in the darkness, Jinyoung can make out his glare.

"What?" he says testily. "What is  _wrong_  with you?"

Jinyoung blinks back his shock. "I—excuse me?"

Jaebum rises onto all fours, crawls up Jinyoung's body, and pins him to the mattress at his shoulders. "Why won't you do this?"

"Do—"

_"Fuck me!"_

As if proving a point, Jaebum kisses him again. His teeth scrape over Jinyoung's lower lip as he invades his mouth, and his hands are tight and unforgiving at Jinyoung's shoulders. He presses the full length of his body against Jinyoung's—and that, honestly, is the last thing Jinyoung can take.

It isn't that he finds Jaebum unattractive. On the contrary, he's still the most beautiful creature Jinyoung has ever known. But the story of their loss is written in flesh along every inch of Jaebum's body, and the intimate contact only brings those details into stark relief. He pushes Jaebum up a little. Jaebum growls, but Jinyoung holds fast.

"I can't," he murmurs. "I...it's too soon. I don’t want to hurt you."

Jaebum turns his head to the side and kisses the inside of Jinyoung's wrist, and it makes Jinyoung's stomach curl. "Come on," he purrs, because he's always all coy and tempting when he's afraid he won't get what he wants. "I'm good. You know I'm  _so_  good. We'll feel better."

That is the very last straw. Because that's what he was afraid of, wasn't he? That Jaebum didn't come to share in their mutual grief. That instead, he wants to force the lid down on Jinyoung, when frankly, Jinyoung isn't finished with it yet. It's too much to lock away just now. Even if it wasn't, he's not sure he'd try.

He isn't done yet. He hasn't finished with her yet.

"No," Jinyoung says firmly, and pulls his wrist away.

Jaebum pushes himself off and flings himself away. "Then what is the _fucking point_  of you?" he snarls. He climbs off the bed, snatches his shirt up off the floor, and pulls it on. "Why can't you just— _stop?"_

Jaebum stalks out the door and slams it shut behind him.

⚉⚉⚉

When he returns home that night, Jaebum isn’t on the sofa. Jinyoung blinks. Jaebum is  _always_  on the sofa. The only time he’s not on the sofa is when he’s in the shower. The pipes aren’t running, and the flat isn’t humid. Where else could he be?

He hears a thump from upstairs, and his heart leaps into his throat. He springs into action, bounding up the stairs and throwing open the door. Jaebum is standing in the center of the room, holding a photo in his hands.

"What- Jaebum, what are you doing?" He asked, concern etched in his voice. Jaebum's head is still turned away.

"Jaebum." Jaebum doesn't move. Jinyoung takes a few steps closer. "Jaebum"

He's about to call his name again when Jaebum flies to life, flinging himself at him. The first punch catches Jinyoung by surprise. It strikes him across the cheek. As he staggers backwards, and manages to block the second one coming at his face, but misses the hard shove to his chest. He misses the next shove too, but on the third he catches Jaebum's arms, quickly pulling him into a strong embrace. The air in the room goes very, very still. Jaebum doesn't move and Jinyoung is unsure whether to let go or continue holding on. Jaebum raises his head, meets Jinyoung's eyes for a fleeting moment, and, with a terrible, shuddering gasp, he crumples. Jinyoung is there to catch him and hold his shaking body as he breaks. They sink into the floor, Jaebum only barely clinging to him.

"I- I woke up and I knew she was gone, but I couldn't," Jaebum sobs, his chest and shoulders shaking with emotion. "I want-need... I need to feel her, and she's not..." Jinyoung rubs Jaebum's trembling back and nods as he rocks back and forth. It's all he can do.

"It hurts," Jaebum whispers hoarsely. " I had her, she was with me, and she's gone, and it's so empty. You can't— you can't imagine how much it hurts."

Jinyoung swallows around the tightness in his throat. "I know. I know, Jaebum. I know."

Jaebum is lost. Days and days of denied emotion are possessing him, racking him with sobs. Every muscle in his body is wound tight with the force of his grief. How could Jinyoung have ever thought this man felt nothing? The proof of his heart is plain in every spasm of anguish. How much had it taken for him to lock all this away? And how painful must it be now that it’s finally spilling out?

He is whispering something. Jinyoung can’t hear it, until suddenly he does: it’s her name, over and over, a litany of “Mina, Mina, Mina,” and he realizes they haven’t said it once, neither one of them, not since it happened. The tightness in Jinyoung's throat swells into an ache. He wipes at his face with a shaking hand and finds it comes away wet.

When Jaebum's body has uncoiled, lying loosely in Jinyoung's arms rather than tensing inwards, and he is breathing in long, shallow breaths, Jinyoung finds that there is nothing left to cry. Not forever, but for now, he is empty.

He kisses the top of Jaebum's head. “Do you want to go to bed?”

Jaebum doesn't answer at first. Jinyoung is just about to ask again when Jaebum swallows and says in a hoarse, weak voice, “Very much.”

⚉⚉

One day, he lies down on the sofa naked from the waist up. Jinyoung doesn’t quit tidying the kitchen and tries not to look at him. If Jaebum wants him to notice, he’ll say something.

Sure enough, after a moment, he says, “It doesn't hurt.”

Jinyoung looks.

Jaebum is on the sofa, but it is not the vacant-eyed, limp sprawl of those earlier days. He is on his back, and one hand is loosely, almost self-consciously covering one chest. The other is resting on his stomach, fingers just over the line of his scar.

Jaebum is running his fingers back and forth over the scar. Already it’s only a thin pink line, intersected by the dark tan vertical line that appeared halfway through the second trimester, when Jaebum was just beginning to really show.

Suddenly, painfully, Jinyoung understands.

He sets down the stack of dish towels, crosses the room, kneels by the sofa, and covers Jaebum's hands—on his stomach and chest both—with his own.

“Hey,” he says gently, “I know.”

 ⚉

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked the story. Please leave a comment!


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